BlueMeanie

On a more serious note, I think we all get critisised wrongly sometimes, due in part, to a lack of understanding of another people's culture. I can completely empathise with how you feel Sondra. I've been brought up with other people saying things like: 'You English and your tea', 'You English and your weather', You English and your Monarchy', You English driving on the left', You English and your queueing'!!! Mostly irritating I know, rather than insulting, but a lifetime of it really makes you mad sometimes. Sometimes ignorance can be bliss, and sometimes not. For those that are ignorant by choice, pity them. Smile and nod, and know that you're above that.

On a more serious note, I think we all get critisised wrongly sometimes, due in part, to a lack of understanding of another people's culture.

True. I once heard Bill O'Reilly say on TV that a lot of thing are going the wrong way in America and that if they wouldn't be careful, "America could end up just like The Netherlands". I was very insulted when I heard that.

Of course you can legally get cocaine in every supermarket here, our women have abortions just for the fun of it, we have government funded campaigns to convert people to homosexuality and we have more brothels than houses, but I don't see what's wrong with all that? :

The Americans i have met have always been nice people , so i can only judge on my experience which as been good.I don't like rudeness and i find the internet a very rude place to be sometimes , ive seen a lot of things written and i just think where are your manners , that might be a bit old fashioned but i was taught " Good Manners " if you can't make a point without been rude you should be silent .My mum always says manners cost nothing and i agree with her ?

I think Britain is still struggling with its post-colonial identity....

My only problem with Britain politically is that damned monarchy. After you guys chopped off Charles' head, you should have done with it. The Restoration was the worst thing to happen to Britain in the last 500 years.

Agree with the first bit totally. Britain has three choices - side with the US, side with Europe or go it alone. It's still not sure what way to go.Re the monarchy - I used to feel the same as you, especially re The House Of Lords. But bear this in mind - Britain has had stable government for 300 years now, free of the revolutions, totalatarian governments and civil wars that have beset everyone else (including your good selves.) It is a nation proud of it's traditions of civil liberties, free speech and tolerance.They must be doing something right.

I admit to begrudging the fact America's involvement in WW2 was a bit late and at a great cost to Britain...Thats a power struggle though by power hungry politicians...not peace-loving individuals.

I can't hold that against them. they had involved themselves in a european war in 1917 just to see the continent tearing itself apart again barely a generation later. Why should americans die for what would be seen as protecting the Soviet, French and British empires (that themselves enslaved and exploited millions). If I'd been an american in 1939 i wouldn't want my country involved in another european squabble.

It's a fair point Kevin & AdamZero earlier. On re-reading this thread, i stand a bit more enlightened and apologise for my own tone. Just hope my brother gets home in one piece instead of defending stupid oil lines!

This is a pandora's box of a subject and can be justified/villified in many examples. I wish I never grew up at times to learn the worlds sins. :-/

Hatred of a country is a strange one , as i grew up, i was feed with WW2 war films and it was off to the fields with are sticks as guns and go and shoot as many Germans as possible , i hated Germans and i`d never met one .I treat people as they treat me ,and it dos`nt matter to me what colour , country they come from i, have respect for anyone, and who has respect for me .I was once proud to be English , not any more , when `ive been abroad and seen how English treat people, with no respect and no courtrsey and it upsets me .But not all English are like that ? i guess not . When i went to New York i could`nt get over how friendly the people were , doe`s that mean all New Yorkers are like that ?Hate Americans , no , only small minded people who hate someone for the only reason that they live in another country , and are proberly wishing they were living there and its just jeaousy , i hate living here now and i`d leave tomorrow if i could .Any Offers As Goerge said , "its easier to critisise someone else than to see yourself "Love and peace , heres hoping

Ignorance ard racism ara closely related. Puerto Rico is a territory of the US and there's always controversy over the political status of the island. But I've notieced that lot of people in PR who are pro independence who are very attached to American lifestyle and values. But again I can't make generalizations, that's the problem with religion and other matters. Everybody has the right to have their own believes. Maybe some of the policies followed by the American governement are not the best but that doesn't mean Americans are bad, The same happens with Muslims, we can't say all Muslims are terrorist but yes, there's a lot of people in the world that hate Americans probably because they want for their nations what US has achieved...

There are many paralells with Britain.....just one for example; Mexican immigrants resemble our own British immigrant issues...Does it portray modern slave labour? have we become complacent & lazy as countries? Some of you guys round here can speak about it with more depth & knowledge than I can..I am now really interested in this whole concept of Anti-Amercanism as I have neve seen so many uncensored views together in one place. The fact it has not degenerated into a slanging match shows the greatness of this forum.

I'd love to hear what Lennon or the rest of the beatles would say about this...My bet is they would be ambigious! lol

I feel that on some level, Americans have deserved their bad rap, though. I'm American myself, but at the moment I'm really not proud of it. My country isn't a great place to be right now in my opinion - our government is doing some very disturbing, terrible things to people in Guatanamo Bay, Iraq, etc. and interfering in other countries' business, and I can understand why some people don't like us for that.

Still...I think that many people who are just ignorant stereotype us so much that they'll call us (them? I don't even like to associate myself with my country...) names even if they don't know what they're talking about, and that's the thing that gets me. *shrug*

People are entitled to say whatever they want, really. I don't mind if they insult America simply because I'm not at all patriotic, but if you're going to insult the country, at least have some background knowledge, please.

I feel that on some level, Americans have deserved their bad rap, though. I'm American myself, but at the moment I'm really not proud of it. My country isn't a great place to be right now in my opinion - our government is doing some very disturbing, terrible things to people in Guatanamo Bay, Iraq, etc. and interfering in other countries' business, and I can understand why some people don't like us for that.

Still...I think that many people who are just ignorant stereotype us so much that they'll call us (them? I don't even like to associate myself with my country...) names even if they don't know what they're talking about, and that's the thing that gets me. *shrug*

People are entitled to say whatever they want, really. I don't mind if they insult America simply because I'm not at all patriotic, but if you're going to insult the country, at least have some background knowledge, please.

It's not the country that's being insulted so much as the people in it. That's what bothers me. I feel sad that you are not proud to be from here. I mean, we've accomplished many great things as well, but it's overshadowed by all the negativity. If people don't like what's going on, then they should stand up for change. It's been done before and it will be done again. I feel there is a definite mood building up which will result in something positive. That's the way I choose to look at it instead of choosing to feel guilty because that's what people tell me I should feel. I refuse to be suckered in by all the media hype.

It's not the country that's being insulted so much as the people in it. That's what bothers me. I feel sad that you are not proud to be from here. I mean, we've accomplished many great things as well, but it's overshadowed by all the negativity. If people don't like what's going on, then they should stand up for change. It's been done before and it will be done again. I feel there is a definite mood building up which will result in something positive. That's the way I choose to look at it instead of choosing to feel guilty because that's what people tell me I should feel. I refuse to be suckered in by all the media hype.

I said I don't feel very proud to be part of my country now - I'm very proud of the fact that it was founded by a revolutionary change of ideas that included efficient democratic systems, freedom of speech, expression, and identification, etc., and I believe that we have contributed successfully to the world in a great many ways that few people choose to acknowledge today, but right now, I'm downright ashamed to be an American. I feel that we're represented by a corrupt government and the mistakes it's made in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and the American people aren't doing anything to change that in this moment in history, which I think is just sad. I don't want to associate myself with those kinds of people because I feel that we're dishonouring and dismantling our revolutionary and intellectual past by doing nothing. Like you, I'm hoping and working for a change, but the very things that people stereotype about us - greed, intolerance, self-centredness - are heightened by today's American culture and are therefore preventing us from doing anything.

Also, this is just my personal views, but I disagree with some basic fundamentals that have prevailed throughout our history, e.g. capitalism. *shrugs* But that's my personal b****ing - it works for some people and doesn't for others.

Here is something may or may not be of interest that a friend of mine posted on myspace. It bears resonance with my own feelings.

Vonnegut's Blues For America - Read It (Or Don't) L xNo matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDEDFOR THE EXISTENCE OF GODWAS MUSIC

Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better and better. We lost that war, by the way. Order couldn't be restored in Indochina until the people kicked us out.

That war only made billionaires out of millionaires. Today's war is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress.

And how come the people in countries we invade can't fight like ladies and gentlemen, in uniform and with tanks and helicopter gunships?

Back to music. It makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on is derived from the blues.

A gift to the world? One of the best rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl from Finland playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.

The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country an atrocity from which we can never fully recover the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.

Murray says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it's being played. So please remember that.

Foreigners love us for our jazz. And they don't hate us for our purported liberty and justice for all. They hate us now for our arrogance.

What is radically new today is that my daughter, Lily, who has just turned 21, finds herself, as do your children, as does George W Bush, himself a kid, and Saddam Hussein and on and on, heir to a shockingly recent history of human slavery, to an Aids epidemic, and to nuclear submarines slumbering on the floors of fjords in Iceland and elsewhere, crews prepared at a moment's notice to turn industrial quantities of men, women, and children into radioactive soot and bone meal by means of rockets and H-bomb warheads. Our children have inherited technologies whose by-products, whether in war or peace, are rapidly destroying the whole planet as a breathable, drinkable system for supporting life of any kind.

Anyone who has studied science and talks to scientists notices that we are in terrible danger now. Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint.

The biggest truth to face now what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes on or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.

Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the second world war, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so. The leading characters in our history books have been our most enthralling, and sometimes our most terrifying, guessers.

May I name two of them? Aristotle and Hitler.

One good guesser and one bad one.

And the masses of humanity through the ages, feeling inadequately educated just like we do now, and rightly so, have had little choice but to believe this guesser or that one.

Russians who didn't think much of the guesses of Ivan the Terrible, for example, were likely to have their hats nailed to their heads.

We must acknowledge that persuasive guessers, even Ivan the Terrible, now a hero in the Soviet Union, have sometimes given us the courage to endure extraordinary ordeals which we had no way of understanding. Crop failures, plagues, eruptions of volcanoes, babies being born dead